


An Inception Christmas Special

by adelaide_rain



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-27 23:31:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/301253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adelaide_rain/pseuds/adelaide_rain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neither Arthur nor Eames celebrate Christmas, so they spend the evening reminiscing about their very own love story.</p><p>-or to put it another way-</p><p>A Christmas special: complete with flashbacks, college age Arthur/Eames, top Arthur, bottom Arthur, a break up, a make up, brightly coloured cocktails and palm tree patterned trousers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Inception Christmas Special

Neither of them celebrate Christmas.

Arthur is Jewish and Eames is… Well, Arthur isn’t exactly sure. He knows that Eames went to a Catholic school but that he was never confirmed. In all the years Arthur has known him, he hasn’t stepped foot in a church other than for weddings and funerals.

Nevertheless, living in America means that one gets carried away with the whole holiday thing – if nothing else it’s a good excuse to drink and overindulge.

Right now Eames is in the kitchen cooking a huge meal that smells delicious and hopefully making them a stiff drink, and Arthur is sat in a room full of unpacked boxes.

They finally – _finally_ – got the keys to the apartment three days ago. That was a Christmas miracle in itself, since the planned move-in date had been June. The six extra months in their run-down sixth floor walk-up had been hell. To be finally sitting on the beautiful wooden floor feels like victory, and Arthur smiles.

There is a box near him which says, in Eames’s neat handwriting, ‘Xmas or whatever’. Pulling it over, Arthur opens it and pulls out the garish blue tree. It’s a bit misshapen thanks to a year shoved in a box but a bit of fiddling makes it presentable.

The rest of the box is mostly filled with tiny flocked baubles and tinsel, and Arthur is soon absorbed in decorating their Purely Secular Tree. The first time he notices Eames’s presence in the room is when he hears:

“Do you remember the first time we fucked?”

Arthur turns and raises an eyebrow. Eames is standing in the kitchen doorway with a cocktail shaker in his hands and a faraway look in his eyes.

“Of course I do. We were eighteen and stupid.”

“As opposed to thirty-two and stupid?”

“Speak for yourself, Eames.”

Eames just throws him a grin and gives the cocktail shaker one last jiggle before he pours two pink drinks into chipped mugs. He hands Arthur one before sitting next to him, their knees touching.

“It was the best sex I’d ever had,” Eames says, still looking dreamy as he picks up a black bauble and hangs it. Arthur frowns – it’s too close to another black bauble – and moves it.

There is a barbed comment on the tip of Arthur’s tongue, but when Eames smiles at him, the snark melts away under the warmth of it. “Me too.”

==

College had started well. Arthur's classes were interesting and the other people on his course actually wanted to be there, which was a nice change from his high school. They listened, they discussed, they understood, and Arthur loved it.

Best of all, though: for the last three weeks he had enjoyed the luxury of having a room to himself.

And then his roommate had the audacity to turn up. Where he was Arthur had no idea, but his stuff was _everywhere_ , including scattered on Arthur’s bed.

To make things even worse, the crap on Arthur’s bed was a pile of the ugliest shirts Arthur had ever seen. Paisley seemed to be the predominate pattern and Arthur threw them onto the other bed with a snarl.

With every piece of crap that he picked up from his side of the room and threw to the other side, his anger swelled up a little more, because it was still _in his room_ , his room that he had kept carefully tidy and organised, and now - now it looked like the fucking apocalypse, if the apocalypse was heavy on clashing colours and eye-watering patterns.

When the roommate finally turned up Arthur was going to rip him a new one.

He managed to finish up his reading for tomorrow’s classes, because his desk faced away from the rest of the room and he could pretend it didn’t exist.

When the door opened a few hours later, Arthur had calmed down and was ready to have a reasonable discussion with his new roommate.

And then it turned out that the new roommate was gorgeous, buff and British, with tattoos peeking out under the sleeves of his t-shirt. Suddenly reason was thrown out of the window. The instant he introduced himself – ‘hello there, I’m Eames’ – Arthur was half-hard and fascinated despite the bizarre palm tree-patterned trousers he was wearing.  
==  
Five weeks later and Arthur’s ideas of Eames still centred around him: a) having terrible taste and b) being incredibly sexy. There was a theoretical c) which stated that Eames was, in fact, very intelligent but they didn’t share any classes so Arthur couldn’t be sure.

After drinking most of a bottle of Mount Gay, b) was the overriding factor in Arthur’s mind. The way that Eames was topless added to this greatly as it offered a full display of tattoos that Arthur had only glimpsed before.

They were both crowded onto Arthur’s bed and watching the new episode of Hawaii Five-0 on his laptop.

“I don’t care what you say, Danny is clearly hotter than Steve,” Arthur insisted, detachedly hearing the slur in his speech.

“You’re bloody blind, Arthur, Steve is much sexier.”

“I’m not blind, you-“ Through a drunken haze, Arthur realised that Eames’s ridiculous lips were only about five inches from his own and took a few moments to stare at them – the colour and the shape and- “You have nice lips.”

Arthur hadn’t planned to say that and Eames smirked, clearly about to launch into something patronising about Arthur’s ability to handle alcohol. So Arthur shut him up in the only way that made sense: he kissed him.

It turned out that Eames was just as good a kisser as his lips promised. After a few startled seconds he responded, licking at Arthur’s lips hungrily and thrusting his tongue into his mouth.

Arthur wasn’t in the mood to let Eames have control so he pushed him onto his back, straddling him and retaking control of the kiss, ravaging Eames’s mouth. His hands slid over Eames’s chest, stroking over the Union flag tattoo before sliding down to squeeze his nipple, eliciting a hiss and hips bucking into his own.

“You’re gorgeous,” Eames muttered, his voice deep and full of the promise of sex. “I’ve wanted to fuck you since I first saw you.”

“What about me fucking you?”

“That too,” Eames said easily, pulling Arthur down for another kiss. “First, though, I want to blow you.”

There was really nothing to say to that, so Arthur let Eames manoeuvre him onto his back and unbuckle his belt. After twisting to put his laptop safely on the floor, Arthur propped himself up on his elbows to watch Eames work.

Honestly, just seeing those lips around his cock was almost as good as the way it felt. It was like watching the best porn in the world while simultaneously experiencing it.

But Arthur’s contemplation didn’t last long, not when Eames was such an expert cocksucker. Mere minutes in, his back was arching off the bed and his mind was full of shocks and sparks and pleasure.

When Eames pulled away, Arthur tugged on his hair to make him return to his task but Eames only grinned at him.

“It’s up to you, darling – either I bring you off with my mouth or you can fuck me.”

Arthur frowned and waved his hand vaguely. “’m eighteen, Eames. I can get it up twice in one fucking night.”

“Not after a bottle of rum you can’t.” Eames snaked up Arthur's body and kissed him. Arthur could taste himself on Eames’s tongue and he moaned. “But this isn’t the only time I’m going to offer myself to you. As far as I’m concerned, this is the state of affairs for the foreseeable future. I’ve had many a wank thinking of blowing you - and for the record, you taste even better than I imagined.”

That was a rather nice revelation, and one that Arthur stored for later contemplation, because god knew that he had jerked off more than once while thinking of Eames. Right now, though, he wanted sex. He wanted Eames, tight and warm around his cock, and that was what he was going to take.

“You got any condoms?” Arthur’s mouth was running on impulse and was much more sensible than his mind – he didn’t recall actually thinking that.

Eames rolled off him and crawled to his bedside table, where he took something from the drawer. Crawling back to the bed, Eames straddled Arthur again.

“The LGBT society was giving these out, awfully generous of them,” Eames said, spilling the contents of his hands onto Arthur’s chest. Squinting, Arthur saw that there was a condom and several packets of lube.

As he watched, Eames opened one of the packs of lube and smothered it onto his fingers. He grinned at Arthur then started to finger himself. Arthur could only gape and shudder at the want that burned in his stomach.

When the third finger went in Eames threw his head back and Arthur quickly slid on a condom. Opening another packet of lube he made himself slick and tugging Eames’s hand away from himself, positioned himself with the tip of his cock pressing at Eames’s hole.

“You want this?” He heard his own voice, raspy and deep with longing.

“Fuck yes,” Eames insisted and lowered himself onto Arthur’s cock.

“Oh. God. _Eames_.”

Tight, hot. Moaning. Strong hands grasping his shoulders for balance. Hips – a tattoo on his right hipbone that Arthur had never seen before. _Tight_. Slick with lube. Gasping and cursing, British words that Arthur didn’t even understand but that sounded hot as fuck. Eames’s cock in his hand, hot and hard and ready to erupt.

And then soon, too soon, an explosion: blackness and stars and everything in him on fire, and Eames’s cock jerking in his hand, and warm liquid on his belly.

And then Eames collapsing on top of him, both of them breathing hard and holding each other tightly.

Slowly, as control over his breath and his thoughts returned, he stroked Eames’s hair and grinned into his shoulder.

“Well. That was a rather incredible end to the evening,” Eames said after a while, his voice muffled by Arthur’s neck and sounding fucked out.

“Yeah,” was all Arthur could manage to contribute.

A little groaning and muttering later and they were both cleaned up somewhat and under the sheets of Arthur’s bed. They were snuggled tightly in the single bed and Arthur was crushed against the wall but under the haze of alcohol and the post-sex closeness, he didn’t really mind. Quite what tomorrow would bring he didn’t know and didn’t really care right then.

==

A timer goes off in the kitchen and Eames pushes himself up to go and do whatever needs to be done. As he walks off to the kitchen Arthur appreciates the way his ass looks in the jeans. They were a gift from Arthur for his last birthday so of course they fit perfectly. It was a slightly selfish gift; Arthur made sure that they fitted snugly around all the parts of Eames’s lower body that that he likes best – his ass and thighs.

He hurries to finish decorating the tree before Eames can return to wreck it with his poor design sensibilities. Strange how Eames can paint masterpieces but when it comes to things like interior design he’s useless.

Once the tree is fully decked, he organises the piles of boxes to create a bigger clearing and finds a plaid blanket in one of them. He sets it onto the floor and when Eames returns he chuckles.

“Are we having a picnic?”

“Our table won’t arrive until January so why not?”

“Oh, Arthur,” Eames says softly, making something tug in Arthur’s chest. He pours another drink – blue this time – into Arthur's mug and sits down beside him on the blanket. “I’ve been thinking, you know.”

“God help us all,” Arthur says, mostly because that sort of comment is expected of him.

“We weren’t stupid when we were eighteen,” Eames continues, not giving any indication that he heard Arthur other than elbowing him in the arm. “We were onto something pretty damn good. Our real stupidity came when we were twenty two.”

==

They had been arguing for weeks. Eames was just so fucking annoying, the most selfish prick Arthur had ever met. Last night had been the worst argument of all and both of them had said things that had torn deeply into the other. It was the sort of argument that there was no coming back from.

So it was a good thing that Eames was moving back to England today.

There were two suitcases and two rucksacks piled near the door, and if Arthur felt a twinge of desperation when he looked at them it was only because he was overtired.

It was good that Eames was moving away. Arthur was planning to join the Army and a relationship with Eames would put all of that in jeopardy, what with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

So it was a good thing. _It was_.

When Eames walked in, a storm of emotions whipped up unexpectedly in Arthur. He swallowed around the lump in his throat – _just tired_ – and bit down on his lip to stop it shaking.

That look on Eames’s face before he shoved it behind a mask of indifference – well, Eames was probably tired as well.

“My taxi’s here,” Eames said, his voice carefully clipped as he threw one of the rucksacks over his shoulders.

Arthur picked up one of the cases and the other rucksack and took it down to the taxi because that’s the sort of thing housemates did when one of them was moving out. Especially when it was raining, because what would be the point in Eames making two trips and getting soaked?

And if they stared at each other for a long, long moment out there in the street, getting soaked anyway, well. They had lived together for four years, all through college. That was the only bond that kept Arthur there. He absolutely didn’t want to kiss Eames, didn’t want to hold him and run his hands over the muscles of his back, his torso, his ass.

More than anything else, he didn’t want him to stay.

“I guess this is goodbye then,” Arthur said, shoving his hands into his pockets before he could do anything he might regret.

“I guess it is,” Eames said, glancing at the taxi to see the driver glare at them impatiently. For a moment Eames looked like he might say something more but he just shrugged. “Goodbye then, Arthur.”

“Goodbye, Eames.”

As the taxi drove away, Arthur certainly didn’t do anything as cliché as let tears mix with the rain on his cheeks.

==

“With hindsight,” Eames says, sipping his drink and looking thoughtful. “We were both just stressed to hell about all the changes we were going through. I was terrified about going back to England - it was like a foreign country after four years over here. I thought – god, I don’t know. I thought that if I wasn’t in a relationship with you that it would make it easy when I couldn’t be with you.”

“Hindsight is a wonderful thing,” Arthur mutters, letting his fingers trace figure eights on Eames’s thigh.

“Can you believe that was ten years ago?” Eames lets himself fall backwards onto the blanket and looks up at Arthur through his eyelashes. It’s incredibly flirtatious and for once Arthur doesn’t think he means it to be.

“I can. It’s been a busy decade.”

“Funny how we both did the same things. Like we were running on parallel tracks. I mean, we both joined the military – which was a bad idea if ever I had one.” Eames frowns, darkness in his expression, and takes a swig of his drink. Arthur doesn’t really know what happened to him back then and Eames has never felt inclined to talk about it. He just squeezes Eames’s thigh gently, and receives a soft smile in return. “Both of us being involved in deniably official dreamshare back then but never meeting each other.”

“That was definitely for the best. You’re fucking distracting, Eames.”

That has the desired effect and Eames breaks into a smirk. “I do try, love.”

“And then both of us leaving the military and getting involved in extraction,” Arthur picks up the thread. “And meeting again on the Maigret job.”

“God, yes,” Eames says, laughing. It’s a real laugh, bright and genuine. It makes warmth curl in Arthur’s chest and a smile lift the corners of his mouth. “That job was fucked up from the beginning.”

“It would have been a disaster if you hadn’t been there.”

Eames’s eyes widen at that, but Arthur means that like he’s never meant anything. If Eames hadn’t been there, not only would the job have been a crapshoot but he and the fucking useless extractor would probably have fallen into limbo.

==

Arthur had a soft spot for the French. It was the accent, probably.

After leaving the Army he had shacked up with a French bohemian with grand ideas about saving the world. It hadn’t lasted long, it was never going to, but Thierry had been a sweetheart and more importantly had fucked like a champ.

That, and that alone, was the reason that he hadn’t done enough research on Delamere before coming to Paris.

Now, Arthur knew that despite being in the extraction business since it had _been_ a business, Delamere was completely useless.

They needed someone else on the team if they had even a chance of succeeding. One of Arthur's contacts had informed him that there was a forger in town, a man prone to genius in planning as well as being the best forger the contact had ever worked with.

A meeting had been set up and Arthur was looking for a man with brown hair, wearing a purple paisley shirt and grey linen jacket. He should be easy enough to spot – certainly no-one else would be wearing that combination. For all the accolades that had been heaped upon this forger, having good taste was not one of them.

The bar where they were to meet was in La Marais. Arthur had never been to the place before but when he stepped inside he was pleasantly surprised. It was dimly lit by lamps covered with Tiffany shades, the well-kept dark wood tables had matching chairs padded with red velvet, and Mucha prints hung in tasteful gilded frames.

From the looks he was getting from handsome French men it was also obvious that this was a gay bar. Arthur wondered if the forger was gay and contemplated hooking up with him after the job was done – a pleasurable way of dealing with the adrenaline rush that extraction always gave him.

He gazed around the room, looking for the man with no taste. Wandering into the depths of the bar, Arthur spotted a grey linen sleeve and a purple paisley cuff peeking out from a booth. Making his way over, he went through the passphrase the contact had insisted he use, but when he reached the table where the owner of the paisley cuff sat, all he could say, in a distant voice, was:

“Eames?”

Older, with more muscles and more stubble, it was definitely him. Had he always looked this good? Even in the paisley Arthur wanted to fuck him.

“…Arthur?” Eames glanced down at Arthur’s crimson tie with gold pinstripes. “You’re… You’re the man I’m here to meet?”

“You’re a forger. You’re a fucking _forger_.”

“I’m the best, darling,” Eames said but his voice was distant and strained.

Arthur sat down heavily opposite him, drinking in the differences that six years had wrought upon him. There were whispers of lines around his eyes and his hair was slicked back in an incredibly sexy way. Despite the ugliness of the shirt he could see a hint of incredible pecs underneath and Arthur wanted the shirt gone, wanted to be in his hotel room riding Eames and comparing how Eames had fucked at twenty-two with how he fucked at twenty-eight.

This was the most out of it that Arthur had ever been since he got into extraction and this was not a good thing. He took a few breaths, pushed sex out of his mind. After the job, maybe, not now. Even that would probably be a bad idea.

Arthur went quietly through the job with Eames, who eventually nodded and followed Arthur back to the warehouse.

And Eames had been brilliant.

He had taken Arthur’s research and formed it into a plan; made the architect put in air ducts; fired Delamere’s chemist, declaring his concoctions to be dangerously unstable and got a new one who had made the best compounds Arthur had used since leaving Project Somnacin.

After the job had been pulled off successfully, both Arthur and Eames told Delamere they would never work with him again. In return he had sworn at them in French and stormed out of the warehouse. After clearing up together, they stepped out of the warehouse and looked at one another.

“Well. That was fun, wasn’t it?” Eames looked over at him with things hidden behind grey eyes that had never been that hard to read, before.

“It was almost a fucking disaster,” Arthur sighed and rubbed his eyes.

There was a long pause and then Eames said what Arthur was really hoping for.

“You want to go somewhere and work off that tension?”

They went to Arthur’s hotel, a luxurious establishment off Place Vendome. Eames cast an appreciative glance around the room before watching Arthur strip off his jacket.

“You have rather different taste these days,” he said, continuing to watch as the waistcoat and tie followed the jacket.

“Not in everything,” Arthur said, grabbing Eames’s lapels and pulling him in for a kiss.

It was strange to be kissing someone who knew how to kiss him the way he liked, stroke a thumb down his spine the way he liked, grab his ass and thrust their hips together the way he liked.

These days, sex for Arthur was as anonymous as possible and rarely lasted beyond one night. As a career criminal he couldn’t afford closeness with someone outside the business and he was too busy for a relationship with someone within it.

So having someone who knew him was refreshing and more than a little exciting. When Eames pulled back and gave him a cheeky grin before dropping to his knees, that knowledge became even more evident.

 _Christ._ Arthur had never been with anyone who gave head like Eames. It was better than he remembered. Eames’s lips and tongue on Arthur’s cock made him shudder and gasp and fall apart. It was _so good_ , all wet and warm – and somehow Arthur had forgotten what a visual feast it was to see Eames with a cock between his lips. And then Eames deep-throated him and everything blurred so Arthur shut his eyes and a moan tore from his throat as Eames coaxed his climax from him.

Later, Eames on top of him, in him, whispering in his ear and under all of the utter perfection of it, Arthur tried to remember why he had ever let him go, let _this_ go, felt so good, felt so right.

Afterward they held each other in silence, the room heavy with their thoughts until they drifted to sleep.

In the morning, without post-extraction adrenaline and post-coital bliss colouring the world, they had looked at each other; uncertain of what they wanted, of the right thing to do, of the _wrong_ thing to do. In the end they had gone for breakfast and then gone their separate ways.

Until the next time Arthur needed a forger.

They slipped into a pattern: Arthur refused to sleep with a co-worker so they fucked first and then Arthur told Eames about the job in bed afterwards. When the job was done they would stay together for a week or so until one or the other of them – usually Arthur – backed away.

Until next time, until next time.

==

“Do you regret it?” Eames asks. “Not picking up the pieces there, I mean.”

“No,” Arthur says, shaking his head. He has thought about this a lot, both then and since. “We weren’t ready then. I know I wasn’t ready for any relationship, never mind one that would involve fixing something broken.” He pauses, then flashes his dimples at Eames. “The sex was _great_ , though.”

“The sex was phenomenal, Arthur, it always is,” Eames says, linking their fingers. “And for my part, I was ready to drop everything to be with you. I’d known for years that you were the best thing that would ever happen to me.”

The words don’t make Arthur uncomfortable or squirm, and he knows that it says a lot about how much their relationship has developed. He just shakes his head and smiles. “Jesus, Eames, what’s with the sappiness?”

“Vodka always makes me sappy. Besides, it’s the holiday season. It’s a time for being with those you love and making confessions you might regret in the morning.”

They sip their drinks and look at the Purely Secular Tree, listen to the slightly tinny music coming from the cheap, battery-operated speakers attached to Arthur’s iPod. It’s incredibly comfortable, just sitting here with Eames, and Arthur smiles as he looks at him.

It’s taken them a long time to get here but it was worth all the hard times because this is as perfect as anything gets in reality. Here, in the apartment they wanted more than anything, about to eat Eames’s cooking, and a king size bed awaiting them – the only piece of furniture in the apartment because they have their priorities straight.

Lifting his mug to take another swig, Arthur finds it disappointingly empty. He looks back up at Eames and finds him looking right back. He lets his lips curve into a dangerous smile that he knows Eames loves. “After dinner, you want to spend the rest of the evening in bed?”

In return, Eames grins his most devastating grin. “Oh, Arthur, I do like the way you think.”

Arthur laughs as he leans over to press their lips together. “Merry Winterval, Eames.”

“Happy Festivus, Arthur.”


End file.
